United States is a nation with supports compulsory education to the children till sixteen years of age. But still around 66 percent of the students in eighth grade are unable read capably. Also, number of school dropouts in the U.S. is more than a million. These and several statistics put a light on how the level of education and learning is lowering in the country which consequently affects the overall economy and development of the nation.

Some general reasons which result in degradation of education system include:

Reforms associated with education system are not specific and rather generalized. This results in lack of specialized support for underachieving students. Also developmental and professional strategies related to teachers, students, educational specialists etc are not available as per requirements.

The focus of schools in the countries like the U.S. is less on overall personality development and more on cognitive growth of the students. Present day system of educational institutions gives emphasis to just memorizing ideas and facts. Analysis of real life problems and implementation of innovative ideas by students is still in its fancy.

Growing number of illegal migrants is another major issue connected to degradation of educational quality. There always remains a shortage of available resources related to education as they are also used by the families of illegal residents in the developed countries.

Grade inflation
Various universities in the U.S. have students scoring higher A or A+. This is not because quality of education has increased or students are naturally scoring more. As the tests and assignments prepared by teachers do not give chance of brainstorming to students, there is less distinction between intelligent and average students.

Also, when colleges receive higher sum of money in form of fees from students’ parents, they feel indebted enough to give students better score during their courses.

Another reason of increased number of students receiving higher grades is that teachers leniently distribute the grades among students in order to avoid being hated by the students. Due to all these actions, it’s the deserving category suffers when they have to apply for jobs in the real world.

Commercialization of education
Another aspect of modern day education system is commercialization of knowledge centers. Education today is represented merely as a paid service to the students which are treated more like consumers. It results in deprived learning of moral and ethical values needed for overall development of students rather than just course related learning. Also, the teacher-student bond in schools and colleges is limited only till the lecture duration.

Recent protests by various students against hike in fees from institutions including Warwick University, University of California etc reflect the angst against the broadening of commercial dimension of learning.

Finland’s education system
Finland boasts one of the most successful education systems in the world. There are several characteristics of Finnish education from which countries can inspire.

One such example is hardly any examinations or homework assignments until a student attains teenage in Finland.

Another factor is competency of teachers which treated with higher importance by the state. Candidates for teaching must attain a master’s degree in education which is sponsored by the government. Only top ten percent scholar graduates are eligible for this master’s program in Finland. The teachers in Finland have status equivalent to professionals like lawyers and doctors.

What methods should be applied to improve the quality of education in the schools:1) School administration and government should work on making the educational place more as a community rather than merely a place of receiving knowledge. This includes mutual support of teachers, students, administrators in bridging the social gap among these groups.

2) There should be voting in schools and colleges for appropriate issues associated with the institute’s policies. This will prepare students as a responsible citizens for future, give students better control over their schooling interests and will keep check on quality of educational institutions.

3) There should be strict measures to check racism related cases in the educational institutions. This will ensure not only equality among various ethnic groups but will also enhance moral values of native students.

4) Exploitation of technology with combination of programming, animation and creativity can boost the education at much advanced level. These processes can be implemented to create multiple interactive games and applications for every subject and class which should be made part of curriculum.

5) Practical scenarios and real life exposure to environment related to the subject is another vertical where improvement is needed.

If all these procedures are strategically applied for imparting knowledge among growing generation, the U.S. can again become supreme in this vertical in the upcoming years.